Old friends
by Lunamoon373
Summary: The afterlife is a very boring place...and particularly lonely for one troll in particular.


((Basing this off of that land Vriska and Tavros were in in DOTA. Sorry for my bullshit beginning story antics, and I hope you enjoy))

Nepeta strolled along. She never thought death would be so lonely. She missed her shipping wall, her friends...Most importantly Equius. She missed her moirail so much it made her heart hurt. She took her hat off, and threw it yet again. She couldn't even glance at the color without remembering that arrow piercing his knee, and the color of his face. His lifeless face, which was strangely smiling. Tears once again rolled down her cheeks as she went and picked her hat off of the ground, closing her eyes while placing it on her head.

She wiped them off with a fierce determination. She would see him again. She kept walking. And walking. There was no aim to it now, it was just endless wandering. She eventually stopped, laying down on the ground. How could you be tired when you were dead? Somehow she was. She picked up her one companion, a stick, and began drawing on the ground.

Karkat 3 Nepeta. Like that will ever happen, she thought. Equius Nepeta. She scribbled underneath, "Forever". She stopped drawing, eventually falling asleep. Not for necessity, but for comfort. And because of her strange tiredness. Another nightmare, one of those last living moments, when she was laying on the ground, her blood littering the floor. Her olive blood. Pain everywhere, especially on her head. Her olive mixing with his cobalt. Tears running down her cheeks as Gamzee delivered the final blow. Once she had considered him a friend. Now he was a nightmare.

She gasped, waking up to a hand shaking her awake. Wait, she thought, a hand? She looked into blue eyes. She hugged the figure tightly.

"Equius!" she screamed in joy, almost in tears.

"Nepeta, I hate to crush your hopes," a familiar voice said to her, "but it's me. Vriska. I assume you're looking for Equius?"

Nepeta immediately released Vriska. Vriska didn't look too great, cerulean blood bleeding through her shirt right where her heart should be. Then again, Nepeta was a mess, one of her horns shattered, olive bruises littering her skin. Olive blood ran down the side of her face, the source from the final blow to her head. But they didn't feel pain anymore. They left that all behind.

Her tears of happiness immediately turned to those of disappointment, almost sorrow, her face trembling. Vriska embraced her as she started sobbing.

Vriska patted her back, feeling bad for the poor girl. By the way Nep looked, she could obviously tell that Nep was brutally murdered. Compared to Vriska's fatal wound, Nepeta was treated horribly.

"Vriska?" a more masculine, but shy voice spoke. Tavros walked to them, not seeing Nepeta until Vriska pulled away from her.

"Oh...Nepeta, why would..." he started, examining her. There was a fairly large hole in his chest, and the sign on his shirt fit perfectly.

Nepeta wiped tears off of her eyes. "I don't care about that anymore..." She said, truthfully. She had actually played a very sad game of connect the dots with her bruises before, out of boredom. She looked down at her two ships she had drawn. She wiped Karkat 3 Nepeta off. "I don't really want to care anymore," she added, tears in her eyes. Tears of betrayal, tears of loss, and even though she was reunited with a friend and comrade, tears of loneliness.

"Listen. You're...you're one of the...sweetest trolls there are," Tavros said, earning a nod from Vriska.

"We needed someone to care, Nep. All of us, right? I don't want to ever hear you say anything like that again. Ever," Vriska said. "Or you'll end up like me."

"Vriska, I'm dead. And I have no one to lose," Nepeta said, tears coming to her eyes again. Tavros patted her shoulder.

"Who in their right mind killed you, Nepeta...?" Tavros asked, and Vriska straightened.

"Tav, when I was facing Gamzee and Eridan on the roof. Remember I told you about that? What was he wearing...?" Vriska said, making hand gestures towards her hat as if he was an idiot.

"Oh, right," Tavros said, looking down.

The three of them talked for a while. Most of it was Vriska telling her story to Nepeta, and Tavros "butting in like an inconsiderate jerk" (in the words of Vriska) to correct her and tell what he was told. Afterwards, Nepeta stayed where she was, while Tavros ran after Vriska, who went off.

"I can't wait to see him," she said, with sad hope in her voice. She was laying down again. For once, ever since she appeared here, she gave up. She absolutely gave up. She just stared at the sky. She eventually dozed off.

Elsewhere, a few hours in the future, a lone figure stumbled forward. He limped, involuntarily, and his eyes fell upon a pair. They were obviously traveling together, and as he got closer their faces were identifiable. Vriska and Tavros.

"Just what I needed," Equius mumbled to himself. The arrow he had taken to his knee was gone, as was the string around his neck, but his face was forever a shade of blue. His knee was unfixable, and he was forever cursed to limp. He had been searching for anyone, really, once he realized that he was mostly alone. But now he didn't have the patience for the spider-like troll and her lowblood companion.

But, to his surprise, when the two saw him, they were shocked. Maybe this is the first time they met someone, besides each other. But they had died much farther apart in time, he thought, in fact, Vriska killed Tavros. How could they be together?

"Oh. Gog. Coincidences," Vriska stumbled, almost as much as the former cripple's voice normally. Tavros himself was too stunned to even talk. He looked joyful, though, to Equius' surprise.

"Whatever could you mean?" He mumbled, still not in the mood for talking to them, wanting to just leave.

"Just...go that way," Vriska commanded, pointing in a direction close to one in which they had come. Equius sighed, but he started walking in that direction.

Nepeta woke up, from another one of her naps. She had taken shelter underneath a small niche in the rock formations around her, using her coat as a blanket in the small cave. She heard footsteps, but the sound was very faint, and she stayed very still. They got louder, and louder. Until they were so close Nepeta could have touched them, had she escaped her shelter. But the only thing she saw was a familiar pair of shoes, and someone that was walking with a terrible limp.

Her mouth opened, in pure elated shock.

"EQUIUS!" She screamed at the top of her lungs, pouncing on her moirail. He immediately fell over.

"N-Nepeta? What are you doing here?" Equius questioned. He had given his life for her, but here she was...

"What am I doing here?" She asks, her mouth open in surprised fury. "No, no, what are YOU doing here? You just let yourself die! Why," Nepeta finished her small anger-induced speech with racking sobs, cutting herself off. Equius hugged her, the small troll crying into his shirt. Nepeta wrapped her arms around him as well.

"Please don't leave me again," she said softly, the words muffled by his shirt.

"I won't," he promised.


End file.
